Alston Moor & Health

Last updated 6 May 2026.

Who we are

Alston Moor Parish Council is the most local tier of elected government for Alston Moor, the upland parish in East Cumbria centred on Alston — England's highest market town — and including the surrounding communities of Garrigill and Nenthead. The Council has fourteen elected councillors and serves a resident population of around two thousand.

Like every parish council in England, ours has a statutory remit set out in the Local Government Act 1972 and subsequent legislation. We are a consultee on planning matters, we manage local amenities, and we have the legal right to be informed about, and to comment on, decisions that affect our community. We are also a precepting authority for a small portion of the council tax. Where the Council does not have direct power to deliver a service, we have a long-standing duty to advocate for our community to those who do.

Alston Moor is one of the most isolated rural communities in mainland England by the Government's own indices of deprivation. The nearest hospital with full services is more than twenty miles away over roads that close in winter, and public transport is twice-weekly and term-time only. That isolation is why the Council pays particular attention to local services, and why we keep records of the commitments made over the years by other public bodies about how those services should be run.

Historically: the Council and community healthcare on the Moor

The Council's involvement in the future of healthcare on Alston Moor goes back at least as far as 2008. In January of that year, the then Cumbria County Council announced that Grisedale Croft — along with five other Cumbria Care residential homes — would be replaced by 2013 with new dual-registered facilities, in partnership with the local NHS. An independent consultation, published as the Shaping Our Lives report later that year, recorded that residents accepted change but did not accept being moved away from Alston. The replacement was never built.

Through the next decade the Council worked alongside the Alston Moor League of Friends, the Alston Medical Practice and a wider multi-agency group on a series of community-led proposals. By December 2014 a draft of what came to be called the Alston Partnership Proposal was already in circulation: a community-originated, integrated model in which one local team, one bed base, digital health monitoring, day services and re-ablement provision would all be linked together. The Parish Council was a named co-author on the formal February 2016 submission to the NHS Success Regime, and again on the late-2016 paper Sustaining Health and Care Services in Alston.

In 2017 the in-patient beds at the Ruth Lancaster James Cottage Hospital were closed on a basis described by the NHS at the time as temporary, citing staff vacancies. The Council, working with the League of Friends and the wider community, took part in a legal challenge through the public-law solicitors Irwin Mitchell, with costs supported by a CrowdJustice page. The matter was resolved before reaching court on the basis of NHS commitments about replacement provision. Those commitments were set out in formal terms by Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust in March 2018 and were given a published shape in the document known as the Alston Alliance Plan: enhanced community nursing, residential step-down beds at Grisedale Croft, day services, rapid response, and the retention of the hospital site for outpatient and clinic use. The Care Quality Commission's October 2018 inspection of Grisedale Croft recorded that the home would provide health beds as part of the plan, in the words of its registered manager at the time. That observation, in the regulator's own published report, anchors the Council's position today.

It is important to be honest about how those years went. Alston Moor's collective campaigns — on the in-patient beds, on ambulance provision, on the closure of local banks — have for the most part delayed service reductions rather than prevented them. The community has engaged properly and persistently every time, and through formal lawful channels every time. What has changed in 2026, and what makes this consultation different, is that we now have something we have not always had: a specific, documented commitment from the NHS, made in 2018, that residential beds at Grisedale Croft would be used as intermediate beds for health purposes. The 2026 consultation cannot dismantle that settlement on its own.

Today: the Council's response to the Grisedale Croft consultation

On 21 April 2026 Westmorland and Furness Council resolved, in closed session, to launch a twelve-week public consultation on the future of Grisedale Croft Care Home. Westmorland and Furness Council's stated preferred option for the site is to find an alternative building in the local area, although no alternative has been identified, no funding has been confirmed, and no timeline has been published.

Alston Moor Parish Council convened an emergency meeting on 28 April 2026, at which fourteen resolutions were adopted unanimously. Those resolutions formally place on the record the Council's opposition in principle to closure of Grisedale Croft unless and until a fully-funded equivalent is operational and located within Alston Moor; ratify the work undertaken in advance of the meeting, including the letter to the Cabinet Member for Adult Care and the programme of fifteen Freedom of Information requests; and authorise the further work to come, including a formal corporate response to the consultation, correspondence with elected representatives and statutory bodies, the seeking of preliminary legal advice, a public petition, public meetings in Alston, Garrigill and Nenthead, and the gathering of evidence from families whose relatives have been affected by displacement to out-of-area care. The resolutions also established a Grisedale Croft Working Group to take this work forward and to liaise with the Alston Moor League of Friends.

The Council's position is firm but cooperative. Westmorland and Furness Council is not a hostile actor; it is the body the Council is asking to think again, in the light of the 2018 NHS settlement to which Grisedale Croft is the last remaining piece. The full text of the fourteen resolutions follows below.

The fourteen resolutions of 28 April 2026

The following resolutions were proposed at the emergency meeting of Alston Moor Parish Council held on Tuesday 28 April 2026 in response to the Grisedale Croft consultation. All fourteen were adopted unanimously. They are reproduced here in full, in the order and grouping of the meeting paper.

Section A — the Council's position

Resolution 1 — Opposition in principle. That Alston Moor Parish Council formally opposes any closure of Grisedale Croft Care Home unless and until a legally-binding, fully-funded and operational alternative — including equivalent residential, dementia, respite and re-ablement / intermediate-care provision — is confirmed in advance and located within Alston Moor.

Resolution 2 — The 2018 commitment. That the Council formally records its position that Grisedale Croft is the last surviving element of the joint NHS-and-Council replacement package promised to Alston Moor in 2017–2018 when the in-patient beds at the Ruth Lancaster James Cottage Hospital were closed, and that any decision on its future must be taken jointly with NHS partners and not by Westmorland and Furness Council alone.

Resolution 3 — The human cost. That the Council formally adopts as part of its campaign position the argument that displacement of elderly Alston Moor residents to out-of-area care homes causes demonstrable harm — through loss of daily contact with friends and family, isolation, and the institutional rather than intimate quality of care and end-of-life care away from home — and that this argument shall be reflected in the consultation response, all correspondence with elected representatives, and all media communications.

Section B — ratification of work already undertaken

Resolution 4 — Letter to Cllr Patricia Bell. That the Council ratifies the letter sent in advance of this meeting to Cllr Patricia Bell, Cabinet Member for Adult Care, requesting withdrawal of the consultation pending a joint review with NHS partners, and adopts that letter as reflecting the Council's position.

Resolution 5 — FOI programme. That the Council formally endorses the programme of Freedom of Information requests already submitted to Westmorland and Furness Council (FOI-208440-2026), the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (FOI ICB 26-033), North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust, Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Cumberland Council, the Care Quality Commission, and NHS England — and authorises any necessary follow-up correspondence, including a challenge to Westmorland and Furness Council's aggregation of the five Westmorland and Furness Council FOIs under a single reference.

Section C — authorisations going forward

Resolution 6 — Formal consultation response. That the Council resolves to submit a formal corporate response to Westmorland and Furness Council's twelve-week consultation, and instructs the Clerk and the Working Group (see Resolution 12) to prepare the draft for ratification by the Council well in advance of the consultation deadline.

Resolution 7 — Correspondence with elected representatives and statutory bodies. That the Clerk be authorised, on behalf of the Council, to write this week to (i) Cllr Mary Robinson (Independent, Alston and Fellside; Leader of the Independent / Green Group on Westmorland and Furness Council); (ii) Cllr Michael Hanley (Labour, Alston and Fellside); (iii) Markus Campbell-Savours MP (Penrith and Solway); (iv) the Director of Adult Care at Westmorland and Furness Council; (v) the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board; (vi) Healthwatch Cumberland; and (vii) the Chair of the Westmorland and Furness Council Health and Adults Scrutiny Committee.

Resolution 8 — Legal advice. That the Council authorises the seeking of preliminary legal advice on (a) legitimate expectation arising from the 2017–2018 NHS commitments; (b) the validity of the consultation structure under the Gunning Principles; and (c) Westmorland and Furness Council's compliance with its duties under the Care Act 2014, the Public Sector Equality Duty, and Article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998.

Resolution 9 — Public statement and publicity. That the Council authorises the Chair, with the Clerk, to issue a public statement and to engage proactively with local and regional media — including the Cumberland News, BBC Radio Cumbria, ITV Border, and trade press — to publicise the Council's position.

Resolution 10 — Petition. That the Council resolves to launch a public petition — both physical (in shops, the post office, and the Town Hall) and online — addressed to the Director of Adult Care and Cllr Patricia Bell, to be presented formally as part of the consultation response.

Resolution 11 — Evidence-gathering from affected families. That the Council authorises the launch of the planned online Google Form (and parallel paper route via the Clerk's office) to gather evidence from families whose relatives have been affected by displacement to out-of-area care, with all information held confidentially and used only in support of the Parish Council's consultation response.

Section D — working arrangements

Resolution 12 — Working group. That the Council establishes a Grisedale Croft Working Group with a remit covering (a) drafting the consultation response; (b) identifying potentially suitable buildings in Alston Moor that could host replacement provision (engaging directly with Westmorland and Furness Council's stated preferred option); (c) exploring community-ownership models and seeking early advice from Locality and Power to Change; (d) considering an Asset of Community Value registration under the Localism Act 2011; and (e) liaising with the Alston Moor League of Friends and with the League of Friends Partner Governor on the Council of Governors of North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust.

Resolution 13 — Public meetings. That the Working Group be authorised to organise public meetings in Alston, Garrigill and Nenthead during the consultation period.

Resolution 14 — Reporting and review. That the Working Group reports to every meeting of the Parish Council during the consultation period, and that an extraordinary meeting may be convened at the Chair's discretion if a material development requires a Council decision before the next scheduled meeting.

Get in touch

Anything not covered here, or any matter the Council should hear about, can be sent to hello@alstonmoorhealth.org. The mailing list is the easiest way to be told when the consultation response is published, when public meetings are scheduled, and when there is something practical you can do.